Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: Can Joel Little Guess The Taylor Swift Songs He Produced??

Episode Date: October 30, 2022

We are joined with NZ music royalty Joel Little, as he embarks on the opening of his brand new BIG FAN studio space in Auckland, we chat to Joel about his production accomplishments and put him to the one second song challenge test...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a bonus podcast from Jono and Ben on The Hits. Now he's produced everyone from Lorde, Imagine Dragons, Taylor Swift is an incredible, incredible CV. He's won a Grammy Award as well and he joins us in the studio right now. Joe Little, good morning. Hey guys. We've got an email coming through, the subject was like Joe Little, big fan. I'm like, oh my God, Joe Little's a big fan, but no, it wasn't quite that. I mean, I am, yeah.

No, I feel like Ben's forced you into saying that. But this is something that you're doing that's pretty awesome. Call Big Fan. Tell us about it. Thank you. Yeah, so Big Fan is a not-for-profit, multi-purpose music facility that we've been building. My wife and I bought the building just under three years ago, and we've been painstakingly converting it into a bunch of recording studios and a live music venue with the idea being that we want to give people more access to high-end studios and venues and equipment and want it to be a place where people can come

and discover a love for making music, playing music. They can discover a love for doing music, playing music. They can discover a love for like doing lights or like being a sound person or whatever and just do whatever is useful for people and helps them. So cool. I mean, you've done so well and New Zealand's so proud of everything you're doing. But, you know, it must be nice for you to give back. Yeah, completely. I mean, I feel like I was lucky enough through my career to have a couple of people

even just like say the right thing at the right time, you know, when I needed to say something that I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it, and that was what kind of kept me going. There was nothing like this, like a place I could go and get the experience of being in a studio for cheap or like playing in a high-end venue. But I still feel like I had help and I wouldn't be where I am without that help.

And so we want to be able to be that for people. What a great issue. My only issue is not for profit. Not for profit? Mate, let's have a word. Let's go for profit. Well there's so much talent in this country, isn't there? And I mean you've

proved that multiple times. Is it weird for you to look back now when things really kicked off for you because you're obviously in a band before you started full time producing. When you look back at the Lord years. Yeah, the Grammy Awards. Is that just a blur that whole off for you, because you were obviously in a band before you started full-time producing. When you look back at the Lord years. Yeah, the Grammy Awards. Is that just a blur that whole time for you? Yeah, it is.

I mean, the whole thing was so surreal, man. I mean, we weren't expecting it, obviously. Put the songs up for free on SoundCloud originally, so there was no expectation for any of that stuff to happen. So December this year will actually be 10 years since we released Royals. Wow, that is crazy. So when you were recording it, obviously you're doing the song,

I think Lorde was still at school, wasn't she? Ella was still at school? Oh, yeah, she was 14 or 15, or maybe 15 when we made that. Were you? Like a Grammy would have just been the furthest thing from your mind. It just wasn't even, yeah, it had never even, I feel like that's the cool thing about us having done that is now people from New Zealand feel like,

well, no, that it can be done. It's achievable. I don't even think it had entered my mind as any sort of a possibility, even like the biggest pipe dream. I was just like, that's never even occurred to me. That was something that could happen to me. So when it did, it was insane. And then we just had to be like, okay, well, now we're at this level.

So let's figure out how to keep doing it. And it it blows up and then obviously you've worked some of the people you've worked with is incredible you know i mean taylor swift imagine dragons jonas brothers olivia rodrigo i mean what are the what is that like you know sitting there with like taylor swift and yeah you're talking about i think you should do this and she's like oh i should do that you know we're recording a song is that a weird scenario it's just one of those things it's like incremental steps you know it's like so if i if I feel like if I'd walked straight into the studio with Taylor Swift after I'd done Royals, I would have been terrible

but because I had all those years of experience of working with people and improving my craft, I was ready for it when the time came, so you're kind of like oh shit, there's Taylor Swift, but then you're like well I don't want to mess it up, so I'm just going to do what I do and we'll make it work what I love about you

is you're very unassuming though you seem very unaffected by this whole journey like if I was you I'd be an absolute madman I'd be like so detached wearing sunglasses having four phones in front of you

I'd be a bikini we've got Joel Little with us a big fan it's an awesome thing an awesome facility that you're running right now but before you go we want to put you to the test

you would have heard your song so many times that you go, we want to put you to the test. You would have heard your song so many times that you produced and we want to give you one second of a song that you've produced and see if you can work out the song

from just one second of the song. Here we go. Yeah, that's too easy. You need to calm down. Taylor Swift, you need to calm down.

I feel like one second is too much. We should have made it half a made it we'll go half a second can you pause it quicker all right here we go let's see uh that's uh hurt somebody no to be fair you've probably heard these a million times i spent a lot of time with these songs painstakingly going over them all right here we here we go. The next one. Here we go. That's – guys, come on, guys. This is too easy.

That's Whatever It Takes by Imagine Dragons. Well, you're really good at knowing your own songs. Okay, here we go. Another one. Here we go. Just a quick – let's see how quick we go with this one. That's Young, Dumb and Broke, baby. And the final one, I reckon you'll get this even in a split second. That's young, dumb and broke, baby. And the final one, I reckon you'll get this even in a split second.

That's for sure. Here we go. Quickest pause, Joel. Was that enough or not quite enough? Hang on. Let me hear that again. There we go. That was going to be my guess.

It's Royals. Amazing what you do. Keep up the grub work. It's so good to have you giving back to New Zealand. It's awesome. So congratulations. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. No worries, buddy. Bigfan.co.nz if you'd like to find out where to book the studios and whatnot. Ben, what have you done to give back to this industry, mate? Joel Little, who's giving back.

So in a roundabout way, I'm giving back to him. He gave a young broadcaster a hit's bucket hat once. Yeah.